BEACH!

My FAVORITE vacation of the year....

This year we stayed a few miles away from the Beach in Carlsbad. I had found a nice BIG house that we could comfortably sleep 3 familes in. (plus Dusti and Taylor that came to help and enjoy the fun with us!) The weather was perfect, and we had loads of fun doing a whole lot of nothing! We got their late Saturday afternoon, and then on Sunday we went to church in the am(Brett and his family were there coincidently, as well as over 20 people that were there with us-so it was fun!) , and then hung out and had people over for a BBQ that night. I thought the kids were go crazy staying inside all day, but they did great! Some adults got some naps in with the little ones and the older kids just had a blast playing Uno and Go fish.

The rest of the week flew by. The beach was super sea-weed-y this year, but besides that it was perfect. Here's a summary of the week in photos:
BEACH:

Around the House/Misc Photos:

Strokers

In April/May Tanner and Kamryn took a pre-swim team class called a "strokers" class. They worked on teaching the kids their strokes 3 days a week. Kamryn enjoyed it much more than Tanner. Some of it had to do with how miserable his skin gets from the pool, but most of it was that he thinks pool should = FUN, not WORK.

She wanted to do swim team, but Mom wasn't ready for that kind of commitment. We lucked out and the swim coach offered the strokers class through the summer, and they were still able to RACE at our home swim meet!

We took the month of June off because we had so much going on, and signed her up for July. He loved going to practice, and the other kids loved being able to swim at the clubhouse 3 times a week while she was in practice!

PRACTICE:



SWIM MEET:
Brian had run home to get my camera that I forgot, so we missed her first race-freestyle. She placed 2nd, but somehow they gave her a first place ribbon. Hah-she was pretty stoked about it, so we let her dream...


Back stroke:




I forget what this one is called:
(I never swam, so it's all new to me!)



Needless to say, she is SO excited to be on the REAL swim team next year. These kids were all up against kids that practiced daily for months! They did awesome.

Kamryn, Olivia, Jackson, Anthony

"Stay"cation

We took our first "in town" Vacation! It was the Fourth of July and a friend of ours found really good prices at a local hotel that had a waterpark on site, so we packed our bags! The rooms were perfect...TWO bedrooms-which is almost a must these days with 6 people in the family. Plus, it's so nice to be able to shut the baby into his own quiet room to get the good nights rest that he so needs.

We slept in, then Brian went and picked up Donuts for everyone. Then we headed to the pool. It was PACKED! Duh-it was a holiday weekend! But we still had a great time. We stayed a couple hours then headed out for home. It was a super fast trip, but I'd do it again sometime.

It was HOT outside-he was a trooper


Payton stealing some sips...


Kamryn having a moody moment/day


Tanner had fun on the big waterslide


Blake thought he was pretty funny....he climbed into this drawer every chance he got. And then he kept emptying the suitcase...

Girls Camp

I was asked to help plan Girls Camp this year! It was fun getting to know all of the young girls at church and it turned out great! The worst part was that I ended up with a really bad cold. I was too tired to fully enjoy myself, and was asleep super early each night and had to miss out on all the late night partying!

I have lots more fun pictures, but I can't find the CD right now, so I'll post them later....

Yep, I'm 30!

Wow is all I can say. I still can't believe it!

My actual Birthday fell on a really inconvenient day. We had just finished the race in Utah and I had to get home and get ready to leave for Girls Camp the next day. SO, we spent the day in the car with four kids driving home. I didn't mind though....it was a good trip!

Jen's 30th b-day was a month after mine, so a few weeks later Lalani and Melissa threw a party for us! We had some friends over, played some games and ate yummy food. I didn't take any pictures that night, but here is one I took off of Jen's blog.

Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day was the Sunday right after the race. Shannon was nice enough to make the boys a super yummy dinner. I had intentions of helping, but Brian and I ended up taking naps in shifts throughout the morning before church, so I was not much help. And once upstairs I would DREAD having to walk down stairs, and visa versa. I had to go sideways and it was hard!

While we were out running Shannon also put together a little questionnaire for the kids about their Dad. Here are the questions/answers:

What is your Dad's Favorite Treat?
Tanner:Twizzlers
Girls: Peanut M&Ms (i.e-THEIR favorites that Dad buys them! hah)

What is something funny that your Dad does?
Tanner: Tickles me
Kamryn: Screams like a girl

What is your Dad's favorite thing to do with you?
Tanner: Watch TV
Girls: Play at the park

Name something you LOVE about your Dad:
Tanner: He built a nice house to live in
Kamryn: He plays with me
Payton: He watches movies with me

We LOVE you DAD!
Happy Fathers Day

Ragnar-Wasatch Back

We finished our first Ragnar Relay race! Brian and I ran with some friends from AZ plus his brother Jared from Utah. We had SUCH a good time. But I'm not sure how prepared I was-I had to run 7 miles down hill, then seven hours later, and at midnight I ran 8 miles uphill....at least I got a break and only had to run 3 miles through town in the pouring RAIN on Saturday. Brian didn't have it any easier....He first ran an easy 3.5 miles. Then around 4am he ran 9.6 miles! And Saturday...his leg may have only been 3.6 miles but it was literally STRAIGHT up a mountain!(gaining 1450 feet elevation!)

We had a girl van and a boy van. We were TERRIBLE at taking pics also. I got some video of the first 6 exchanges, but forgot to pass the cameras off to the boys. AND, we NEVER once got a pic of our entire team together. Oh well, that's really my only regret.

Here's a summary(yet super long!) of the experience:

I was runner 6 in the first van. So I got to watch everyone do their legs before it came to mine. They all were so different. Some had huge hills, some ran through town, some needed water more than others....anyway, Melissa was runner 5 and her leg was in my opinion the WORST one. It was over 8 miles long-UPHILL on a whinedy dirt (DUSTY) road. She had some trees for shade and what not, but it was brutal. It took us over 30 mins to even DRIVE her route, and we were not aloud to stop, so we only saw her once, around mile 4, and could give her a quick drink. Anyway, she was running up the mountain, and my leg was to run down the mountain. I had no idea what to expect for mine, and the anticipation was killing me! This however ended up being my favorite leg! The first 4 miles were STEEP downhill(switchbacks). On a super rocky dirt road. It was so downhill that if I had wanted to stop, I couldn't have-I was going way too fast and concentrating SO hard on where my feet were stepping so I wouldn't roll an ankle. I'm usually a bird watcher as I run, just in la la land checking out the scenery. But seriously, if I took my eyes off this road for one second, I would have biffed it in the rocks. Once down the mountain the road turned to pavement and the last 3 miles seemed like they took forever since my mind was now calm and somewhat bored. (i.e. running downhill switchbacks is the way to go!)

The only thing I didn't realize at the time was how SORE my thighs and butt were going to be from that downhill run. My legs were basically doing "quickfeet-football" run the entire 4 miles.

The thing I remember the most about my night run was being nervous! It was SO dark outside. They had completely shut down the little middle of nowhere highway so there was no cars, no lights, NOTHING. There was two male runners close by me at the start and I was trying SO hard to run as fast as they were....Because when I turned around, I couldn't see a single headlamp in the distance. Once we were passed all the farms and I couldn't hear the cattle ramming gates and what not, I got less nervous and could just enjoy my quiet, lonely, somewhat boring night run. About an hour into it, I had less than two miles to go, and the clock on my ipod read straight up midnight. The hill in front of me looked SO ginormous and endless. I convinced myself I needed a break. SO, I walked...for over 4 straight minutes. I had only ran more than an hour one time before this. (well two times counting earlier that day when I ran for 1 hr and 4 mins) Anyway, after my break I was good to go again and still made it in good time.

As I came in I saw the boys at the finish line, but couldn't find where the girls for a while. I had a few sips of Brian's water while looking, but then once we met up and started driving I forgot to drink more water. It was 40 degrees outside (forgot to mention that one!) and so I wasn't too thirsty anyway. We drove about 45 mins down to Melissa's Mom's cabin to get some sleep in some BEDS. When we got there, it was locked! (it was a indoor-condo place and the front entrance was locked-with no one at the desk) Well, we finally got in, found the keys at the desk and headed up the elevator. I got instantly sick from the motion and grabbed the envelope that the room keys had been in, and totally started to throw up. I ran to the room, found a bathroom and puked some more... I'm pretty sure it was from no water and I hadn't eaten since dinnertime 7 hrs earlier. I hopped right into the shower, cleaned off, and drank lots of water. I had one foot into bed, just about to hit the pillow-the clock read 3am.....then BAM, the FIRE ALARM went off!! In the entire place. It was so loud you had to cover your ears. They couldn't shut it off....After 20 or so minutes the Firemen came...Turns out the steam from my teammates shower had set off a faulty alarm. They had to rip the whole thing out of the ceiling to get the dang alarm to shut off! 42 mins...that's how long it lasted....it was definitely something to laugh about. Jen somehow stayed in bed and was able to get a little rest from it.

We slept til 7am! Three hours instead of the 4 we had planned on, but still, more than most people! It felt good to head out on the road again knowing we each only had ONE more leg to run. It was pretty hard to walk normal-my legs were SO sore, I wondered how I could possibly run on them! It was pretty sunny that morning, but sure enough, just as I was getting ready to run the rain started coming. At about mile 2 it was really coming down hard. I just ran through some neighborhoods in Heber, and even had to wait for teh crosswalk on main street to get across. As I got to the exchange point I was a little confused at the look on all the girls faces-they looked ticked! Then I notice....Darren is not there....the boys were LATE! I had to stand there in the rain for over 4 minutes. It wasn't that bad, but it had all the wives pretty ticked at their lazy husbands for a while. Hah. They had been at the condo sleeping and showering also, and just left late.

The rest of the day was relaxing...the boys van went up and over the mountain and then ran down under the ski lifts into Park City. Matt was the last runner and it was SOSOSOSO cold and HAILING on him as he finished the race for us. We got our medals and headed out of there. (oh yeah, we all got a FREE massage while we waited for him also!- it was SO needed!)

It was so much fun. BUT, I don't think I could sign up for the Wasatch Back Ragnar ever again knowing how many mountains we had to go up and down! We're going to do the LA one next year and I hear that one should be cake; comparatively speaking. We'll see....but I'm sure it'll be a fun time either way!

P.S. Don't ask what our time was....we were there for fun! It was somewhere around 33 hours I think....188 miles... Only one of our teammates was a seasoned runner, and she was 4 months pregnant and running strong!

UTAH - Rodeo

The kids have been SO excited for this trip. Brian and I are running in a relay race with some friends this weekend, so we headed up to Utah for a week to visit before the race. The kids have had sleepovers in the living room each night and are having so much fun together. Blake traveled well, as did the older ones, and he has been happy as can be while we've been here. We decided it'd be fun to take the kids to a rodeo. (after bedtime, in the pouring RAIN!) yeah, needless to say-we didn't last too long out there. They loved what the saw, and Case and Tanner stayed with the Dad's til the end so they could see the bull riding.

Everywhere we went we had the "Girls" car and the "boys" car. Here's the girls headed to the Rodeo! And in the next pic....no surprise-Payton is trying to scale the fence...

Case and Tanner were too cool to smile for me....and here we are getting soaked! Notice everyone is trying to stay warm/dry and Payton was just dancing around...probably screaming as loud as she can for fun.

Sleepy girl

I found Kamryn asleep on the couch....how cute it that!

While going through my pictures, I found these of Payton....Kamryn must have been doing a photo shoot of Payton one day. The "mommy's camera is NOT a toy" lecture must not have sunk in.